Postdoctoral Research Fellowships in Interdisciplinary Informatics are sponsored jointly by the Directorates for Mathematical and Physical Sciences (MPS) and Biological Sciences (BIO) to encourage research and training that cross the traditional disciplinary boundaries between them. These fellowships provide opportunities for interdisciplinary research and educational activities in biology and informatics to a wide range of recent doctoral recipients (biologists, chemists, physicists, mathematicians, statisticians, computer scientists, and others). It is expected that the Fellows trained through these fellowships will play an important role in training the future workforce. Postdoctoral research and training in informatics will permit junior scientists trained in biology, mathematical, chemical, and physical sciences to play key roles in developing new quantitative tools and methods that will advance informatics in biology and other fields.
The research and training plan is entitled "Computational investigation of structural and dynamical effects of protein post-translational phosphorylation." The regulation of protein activity by phosphorylation plays a key role in many cellular processes. Despite the centrality of this post-translational modification, the mechanisms of regulation remain poorly understood in many cases. The primary goal of this research is to develop new computational tools, to validate existing sampling algorithms, and to refine force fields that can be used to analyze and predict structural and dynamical effects of phosphorylation.
